Tennis: Krygios wins in first match after injury break

(Reuters) - Nick Kyrgios returned from a two-month absence to beat Germany's Maximilian Marterer at the Stuttgart Open on Thursday.

The Australian fourth seed, who missed the French Open with an elbow injury, received a bye in the first round and reached the quarter-finals with a 6-4 4-6 6-3 victory.

There looked nothing wrong with Kyrgios's serving arm as he banged down 20 aces on the grass and he delighted fans with a trademark tick shot which proved a turning point in the decider.

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With Marterer serving at 2-3 Kyrgios played a shot through his legs for a winner and it appeared to ruffle Marterer who then made two unforced errors to drop serve.

Kyrgios then held his next two service games to book a clash with Spanish left-hander Feliciano Lopez.

Lopez, runner-up last year before going on to win the Queen's Club title, beat Frenchman Gilles Simon 7-6(6) 6-4.

"This is very important for me, to have weeks on grass. It's a very unique surface. You play only two, three weeks a year ... it's so important to get matches, to get hours on the grass and (you get more) when you win," he said.